


Forever Material

by theparanoidergosphere



Category: The Vampire Diaries & Related Fandoms, The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: Angst, Confrontations, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, Past Abuse, Protectiveness, Rape Aftermath, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Worth Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-29
Updated: 2015-07-29
Packaged: 2018-04-11 20:12:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,098
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4450634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theparanoidergosphere/pseuds/theparanoidergosphere
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Caroline goes to talk some sense into Damon on Stefan’s behalf, and the conversation takes an unexpected turn. Old insecurities surface, and Caroline reaches her boiling point. </p><p>Set several months following the season 6 finale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“That’s it, I’ve had enough!”

Damon barely had time to turn to face the incoming assailant before she was looming over him, arms crossed, brow furrowed.

“Please, blondie, I haven’t had nearly enough to drink yet for this.”

“It’s 11:30 AM. You shouldn’t be drinking at all.” 

“Advice coming from the borderline alcoholic’s lips? Taken with a grain of salt.”  
Caroline rolled her eyes before swiftly yanking the freshly poured bourbon out of Damon’s grip.

Damon’s eyes flashed with fury, and he instinctually shot up from his chair by the fire. This, the leather chair, the one he had barely left in the last few months, aside from irregular trips to Mystic Grill’s bar and various sorority houses to fulfill a different kind of thirst.

He was face to face with Caroline, his nose nearly brushing her forehead. His eyes burrowed furiously into hers, an intimidation tactic that wasn’t working wonders. Caroline didn’t even flinch, but met his gaze with typical Caroline determination.

“Don’t test me,” he growled.

“Don’t be rude,” she barked back. “Your mother comes back after decades, the least she could do is teach you some manners!” 

Damon stared her down, unsure of his next move. Part of him wanted to snap her neck, pour himself another drink, and go back to brooding in peace.  
But Stefan would be home soon. And he would be pissed. Beyond pissed. Hurt. Betrayed. The whole nine yards. Despite his epically long and violent downward spiral, Damon didn’t forget about his little brother. He couldn’t. And though Caroline managed to irritate every single last nerve in Damon’s body, Stefan loved her. Was in love with her. 

Besides all that, Damon was just too tired to deal with it. He had to regain his strength from his last binge – one man can only rip into so many throats and exercise so much compulsion before he has to return to his cave for a long, booze-filled hibernation. 

Damon let out a sigh. He raised his hands in surrender and fell back into his chair, drink-less. 

“Well,” Damon finally replied, swinging his legs around to hang over the chair’s arm, “my mother is a psychotic serial killer and void of any love for me or my brother. I’m not sure she qualifies as an expert on courtesy.” 

“Anyone knows more about courtesy than you,” she shot back. 

Damon closed his eyes, crossed his arms behind his head and sprawled his body across the chair. He scrunched his face. 

“Bonnie!” he called, “Please come use your witchy powers to make Barbie disappear!” 

“Bonnie isn’t here. And even if she was, there is no way she would choose you over me.” 

A pause. 

“I mean, countless people have been chosen over me in my life. But you will not be one of them.” 

“What is it that you want, Caroline?”

“You to suck it up! We all love and miss Elena, and god knows these past few months haven’t been easy on any of us. I lost my mom, for Christ’s sake, and now the closest thing I have to family is Bonnie and your brother, who is kind of dealing with stopping a violent lunatic who happens to be his mother and he could really use some support. So get off your ass and support him, for all the times he’s been there for you.” 

There was a long pause before Damon opened his eyes, turning to look at Caroline with a blank expression. Again, she met his gaze, but this time with less confidence and more nervous anticipation. Like she was scared she’d just revealed some great secret. 

“Obviously,” he muttered.

Caroline straightened her back. “What?” she huffed.

“Obviously you aren’t here for me. You don’t give a damn about me. This is for Stefan.”

Her eyes immediately dropped to the floor. “Of course it’s about Stefan,” she replied. “He’s hurting, too. It’s one thing to see your mother after nearly two centuries, it’s another thing to find out she doesn’t care about you, and it’s a whole other to try and stop her sociopathic squad of heretics. Especially alone. And he’d never admit he needed your help when you’re grieving like this, so I’m stepping in and doing it.” Her eyes lifted to meet his once more.

“Snap out of it, Damon. Elena’s gone now, but she’s coming back. Stefan? He’s here, right now. And he needs you. So stop being a pitiful, wounded, jackass. Take a shower, and become a person again. For your brother.” 

A long pause stretched before Damon turned back to Caroline. His expression was that of both defeat and resolve. Damon already knew and understood every word Caroline had said. He’d just spent months trying to ignore it, unwilling to move on. 

“You’re right,” he muttered. 

The surprise was plain as day on Caroline’s face, but her lips remained sealed with unease, waiting for him to continue. 

“But, you know he needs you too – right? I mean, he doesn’t just need you… he wants you.” 

Caroline’s eyes were locked on her twiddling fingers. “I know,” she agreed. “But I just… can’t. Not right now.” 

A beat. 

“You’re afraid.” 

Caroline glanced up at Damon, and narrowed her eyes. “What?”

“It’s been months, blondie. You’ve really started to heal, you don’t look like you’re about to fall apart every five seconds. So what else could you be waiting for?”

“Don’t’ start pretending you know anything about me,” Caroline snapped, shooting daggers at the dark-haired brother across from her. 

“I know that voice in your head. When something, someone, you want more than anything in the entire world is finally just in front of you. And it’s telling you that you won’t survive it. The heartbreak that will inevitably follow,” his voice was foreign, even to himself. It wasn’t nurturing, but it was soft, and low, and unthreatening. 

Caroline bit her quivering lip. 

“I’ve lost everyone,” her voice was so soft it was almost a whisper. “All I have is my ability to say no. Even though I want him, even though I love him… even though it’s tearing me up inside. It’s all I have. Because once I say yes… it’s all in his hands. I’m powerless.” 

“That’s a load of crap. Stefan Salvatore would do anything in the world for you, and you know it. I mean, if there were any pair of hands to trust – 

“Stefan is kind and good and wonderful. But that doesn’t change the facts. You just wouldn’t understand.”

“Wouldn’t understand? I spent over a century pining after a woman who couldn’t have cared less. I get it. You’re a control freak, which makes this doubly hard. But don’t let your wacked-out insecurities keep you from – ”

“My last boyfriend, the former love of my life, chose a stupid revenge fantasy over me,” Caroline interrupted, meeting Damon’s eyes. 

Damon’s mouth hung partially open, the words he were about to speak dissolving into thin air, not necessarily shocked by the act of interruption but more by its content. It was, quite frankly, out of nowhere, and having zero idea where this train of Caroline’s thought would lead left him feeling a little uneasy.

“My first boyfriend broke up with me once he found out who I really was. He couldn’t handle dating a vampire… but had no trouble jumping into bed with a thousand year old tramp with a British accent not even a year later.” She let out a hard laugh.

“Not to mention the entire time we were together, he was still in love with Elena, and at any point would have taken her back. So I already have experience loving guys that love Elena… and believe me, it’s not the best.” 

Caroline paused, heaving in a ragged breath. Damon wanted to say something witty, and helpful… anything of value. Like that Stefan had moved on, that Caroline made him happy, but Damon had experience with Stefan and Elena insecurities. He deeply understood the sharpness of their power, the pain they could inflict. And Caroline’s sudden, rare, totally unexpected emotional confessional to him, of all people, had left Damon quite literally speechless.

“Look – ” he began, because it was the only thing he could think to say. 

“Even you!” Caroline blurted, without giving herself time to think. “You want to talk about lack of control? You, literally, controlled my every move when we were ‘together’. God… I didn’t even like you! You were an ass. You forced me to like you! Forced me to have sex with you, give you my blood like I was a walking canteen… And I still got to watch you use me up until you’d gotten everything out of me you wanted, and then toss me aside like old garbage.”

Caroline felt the tears falling from her eyes before she had time to even realize she was upset. She quickly turned from Damon’s burning stare, and wiped them away shamefully. 

There was a pause as Caroline tried to keep in the tornado of emotions that threatened to pour out of her in a screaming, agonized, tantrum. 

When she finally spoke again, her voice was concentrated, focused, collected. Hard. “Being a vampire might have made me strong and fierce and independent, but it never made me Elena. It never made me ‘forever’ material.” She inhaled a shaky breath.

“My mom was the only person that could have loved me forever, and she’s gone now. I know I deserve better than being someone’s second choice, or their last resort, or their ‘until something better comes along’. I won’t settle for it anymore… I won’t let myself be with someone as amazing as Stefan only to have it ripped away from me… I won’t do that to myself.” 

There was a long pause. Long enough for the silence to fill the space between them, to diffuse about the room and with it dissolve all of the pair’s emotional padding. No amount of sarcasm or bickering or liquor could soften Caroline’s words, and with each passing moment of quiet the weight of them bear heavier.  
Damon at last glanced at Caroline Forbes and was surprised by his complete lack of irritation. He let himself focus on the sparkling of her eyes, like a clear lake in the summer. Underneath were dark circles, like boats docked on the shore. He studied the permanent drooping of the corner of her lips, and was shocked to find himself feeling not only sorry for her… but guilty, too. 

So much time had passed since he’d returned to Mystic Falls. So many relationships destroyed and built, loves lost and found, supernatural perils threatened and defeated, that he’d almost forgotten about his stint with the young, girly cheerleader. The human Caroline. The evil, mass-murdering Damon.

Damon had never thought to care about Caroline. She was just always there, like an old wine stain on white carpet. You could never get rid of it, so you learned to accept it, and, as much as you could, just pretend it’s not there. Damon, with surprising self-reflection, was hit with the realization that perhaps it wasn’t really her that he had tried to ignore all these years, but the walking reminder of all the pain he had inflicted, the damage he had done. It was easy using people without having to face the consequences. 

But there she was, staring him in the face. And she was impossible to ignore. It was a powerful, massive shock, the sudden realization of how destructive he really could be. The memories flooded back, everything he’d said and done in those first weeks together, and the years after he’d spent pretending it hadn’t happened. How could she stand to be around him? To accept with muffled indignation the relationship between him and her best friend?

“I meant what I said at the funeral,” he ejaculated. “Your mom’s funeral. I didn’t just say that because it sounded good or even to make you feel better. I meant it.” 

Caroline was watching him anxiously, the unease of uncertainty weighing her down. She didn’t like when people were unpredictable. 

And Damon proceeded to do something Caroline never could have predicted. He apologized.

“I’m sorry,” Damon choked. To his surprise, the words didn’t’ taste like acid in his mouth. “I’m… sorry, for what I did to you. It was fucked up, on just about every level. But it – It wasn’t because of you. It was because of me. ” 

Caroline just stared, dumb struck, her face damp, eyes puffy. 

“And my brother isn’t a clueless quarter back or a werewolf with anger issues. And he sure as hell isn’t me.” Despite himself, his lips stretched at one corner, revealing a half-smile.

“If there is one thing I know about Stefan… he doesn’t do anything lightly. Especially not love. If he’s in it, it’s for the long haul. … And he loves you, Caroline. Loves you in a way I’ve never seen him love anyone.” 

Caroline swiped at her face, feeling the moisture of old tears sink into her fingertips. Her chest had never felt heavier. 

Caroline stood up on unsteady legs before Damon could continue. She had let this charade go on long enough.

“Be there for Stefan. Minus a mom, he needs his brother.”

She turned before Damon could respond and walked out the front door without a single glance back. 

Minutes passed that felt like hours. Damon sat with the darkness she’d left behind, silently trying to put together the pieces of whatever the hell just happened. 

After some time, the presence of a second Salvatore became apparent.

“How much did you hear?” Damon asked, remaining cemented in his pensive position on the chair. 

Stefan was standing in the center of the entryway, motionless, eyes wide as moons. His face was filled with emotion Damon couldn’t even begin to unpack.

“All of it,” Stefan replied in a wounded, gravely voice.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damon and Stefan have a heated confrontation, and Stefan seeks out Caroline to deliver some much-needed assurance.

Damon had grown weary of long silences. Not that they had ever been particularly thrilling, but his latest exchange with the usually-perky Caroline taught him that long pauses bred nothing but intense emotions that he wasn’t sure he was equipped to deal with.

Especially from his brother, who, in all his stoic silence, was still a vast sea of emotional depth. 

“Do you want to punch me?” Damon cracked, inappropriately using humor to shade his discomfort, in typical Damon fashion. 

Stefan remained silent.

“Come on. It’ll feel great. You haven’t punched me in years! The last time was… what, when I let Elena feed from me?” 

Stefan hung his head, hands resting on his waist like a disappointed father. To someone as clueless as Damon, that meant progress. So he continued.

“Come on! It might also relieve some sexual tension…” he prodded in a sing-song voice, grinning. 

Damon regretted the remark immediately when Stefan finally turned to face him, and Damon saw the raw anguish on his brother’s face. Damon’s smile, already non-genuine, was wiped clear off at the sight. 

“Is this funny to you?” Stefan asked, sincerely. 

It was Damon’s turn to be quiet now.

“No, tell me. Do you still enjoy taking everything I love away from me? I thought we had passed that.” 

“Come on, Stef. All of this… it was years ago. I can’t even be blamed for this one, I had no idea you two were going to be together.” 

Stefan scoffed. “We aren’t together,” he retorted resentfully. “Which, as we’ve now discovered, is because you made sure the girl I love hated herself so much she won’t let me close enough to prove her wrong.” 

“When I met her, she already hated herself,” Damon mumbled. “It’s what made her such an easy target.” 

Not an entire second lapsed before Stefan had moved from the entryway to the sitting room and yanked Damon up to a standing position in front of the fireplace, the collar of Damon’s shirt firmly in his grip. 

“Careful, Stefan,” Damon warned.

“You don’t care. Elena’s gone and here you are, back to not caring about anyone but yourself. Is that it? Is that how this ends?” His voice was dark and gritty, and Damon for once had the good sense to not respond. 

“All our friends, who have bent time and space for you, mean nothing to you now. I mean nothing now. You’ve always been selfish, and you’ll live the rest of eternity being selfish, and I will still be here, pretending that you’re redeemable, pretending that you’re worth the hundreds of chances I give you, while you rip apart everything around me.” 

Damon slammed his palms square into Stefan’s chest, sending him flying backward. Damon swayed a moment, regaining his composure.

“Not true, Stefan. I didn’t have the slightest idea what was going through that little blonde head until you did, five minutes ago! Do you think I feel good about it? Do you think I’m just giddy to have all of that shit from the past resurface?”

He wiped the sweat away from his brow with the back of his hand.

Stefan stared blankly at his brother. 

“I don’t care how you feel. This isn’t about you. It’s about Caroline.” 

Damon let out an exasperated sigh. “I apologized, Stefan. What more do you want from me? What more is there that I can do?” 

Stefan ran his tongue over his front teeth in contemplation.

“I don’t know. But we’ll let Caroline figure it out.” 

Stefan took a step forward, so he stood face to face with his brother. “And until she decides she doesn’t, I hate you with her.” 

Damon met Stefan’s eyes, and for what must have been the third or fourth time that afternoon, he found himself at a complete loss for words. 

Luckily, there was no need.

Stefan’s fist impulsively flew forward to meet Damon’s jaw, sending blood flying from the corner of his mouth. 

Stefan took a deep breath.

“You’re right. That did feel good.” 

He turned and exited the house, leaving Damon cradling his busted lip. 

“I’m getting real sick of the dramatic exits in this house,” he muttered to himself.

—–

Stefan was hesitant to knock when he arrived on Caroline’s porch. He’d spent at least four or five hours walking around aimlessly, trying to decide the best way to approach such a complicated and delicate situation, but had come up blank. Now, it was dark, and he was as sad and clueless as ever. 

But he wouldn’t’ leave. Not until she knew how he felt. 

He tapped on the glass. 

“One second!” he heard her call, and the sound of her voice soothed him. He watched her scurry down the stairs, frantically wiping away dried streaks of mascara from her cheeks and smoothing down flyaway curls, before opening the door.

“Stefan,” she breathed. “Hey.”

He smiled, but it was tinged with sadness, and Caroline responded immediately.

“Are you okay?” she asked, opening the door wider for him to step inside. 

He obliged. 

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I just… wanted to talk to you.” 

Caroline crinkled her brow in obvious suspicion, but closed the door and followed him into the living room. 

Stefan sat on the couch, expecting her to follow suit. Instead, she stood, tapping her foot nervously. 

“I can make tea,” she offered. “Or, better, I have a bottle of tequila somewhere.”

“I’m fine, Caroline,” he soothed. “Would you sit down with me?” 

She had run out of excuses to keep away from his dangerously attractive body, and a request made in such a gentle voice was nearly impossible to refuse.

“Okay,” she gave in, sitting on the farthest edge of the sofa, leaving enough space for two bodies between them. “What’s up?” 

The distance between the pair left Stefan aching, but he didn’t dare broach it.

“So, I…” he sighed. “I overheard your conversation with Damon.” 

Caroline’s eyes shot open.

“You what?” she asked, turning her head to face him, but not quite meeting his eyes.

Stefan only nodded, allotting Caroline a moment to process. 

She turned back away, face burning hot with embarrassment, eyes stinging with fresh tears. She inhaled a deep breath, blowing out slowly through pursed lips – a calming trick a good friend had taught her years before, during her first hours as a vampire.

“Exactly… how much did you hear?” 

Stefan responded quietly, “about everything.” 

An agonized sigh escaped Caroline’s lips, and she buried her head in her hands, elbows resting on her knees. 

“God…” she whispered. 

“Caroline,” Stefan called, scooting just an inch closer to her, desperate to wrap her in his arms. “Why didn’t you tell me?” 

“I so do not want to be having this conversation right now,” she responded, refusing to emerge from the hiding place that was her palms. 

“Please.”

“I don’t know, Stefan… maybe because admitting to the mature, perfect, guy I was falling for, that I haven’t changed at all from the neurotic insecure mess I was as a seventeen year old went against my natural instinct of self preservation?” she huffed. 

A pause.

“Or maybe because I hadn’t even really admitted it to myself.”

Stefan instinctively reached to place his hand on Caroline’s knee, and she flinched away from the touch. 

His hand remained for several moments stretched out in front of him, in shock, before it dropped back down to the couch. 

“You’re wrong,” Stefan muttered in a wounded voice. “You have changed.”

“Look, Stefan – ”

“No, Caroline. You shouldn’t have to hide from all of this…. I know I’m guilty for not seeing it, how deeply rooted all this pain is.” 

He paused.

“I just… you have to know.” 

Caroline shifted in her seat. Slowly, she removed her hands from her face, but didn’t dare look up.

“If anything, these last few months spent without you… longing for you… have just affirmed everything I already knew about you, but took too long to realize.”

He waited. 

“… knew what?” she eventually questioned, her voice so soft only supernatural ears could hear.

“That you’re ‘the one’.” 

Intuitively, Caroline lifted her head to meet his gaze. Her countenance was that of wonderment. 

“Do you know how I know?” Stefan asked. 

“Because right now, I hate Damon. Every part of me wants to impale him with an iron rod…. But I also love him. And no matter how many times I have tried to run away from that… I can’t escape it. I’m trapped by my love for him, and I’ll be in that trap forever.”

Stefan again took the opportunity to move closer to her, to close the aching space between them. Caroline’s eyes were glued to Stefan’s lips, studying them as they moved.

“But nothing is forcing us to be together,” he continued. “No familial bond, no ethereal forces pushing us together as doppelgängers…”

Caroline felt the all-too-familiar hot searing rush of jealousy and the cold pierce of worthlessness all at once. She turned mechanically away from Stefan, ashamed. 

But Stefan knew Caroline, knew the thoughts racing through her mind, and desperately he stopped her mid-turn with one gentle hand placed on her cheek.

“We don’t have to be together for any other reason than because we want to,” he spoke softly. 

“I want to, Caroline. I want to hear your laugh, and I want to be responsible for the sound. I want to be around you, all the time, every day. Because you make me feel happier than I have ever felt, and because that happiness is free of burden or condition. Because you have been at my side through everything. Because you are… this traveling sparkle of light and it’s a gift just to be able to stand in your glow.”

Caroline lifted her eyes to finally meet his. 

“You’re the best person I know, Caroline. And I’m not letting that go. I said it before, but I’m saying it again. I’m not going anywhere. I’m going to be here, waiting. Six months, sixty years… it’s all relative to a vampire.”

He moved his hand away from her cheek, brushing a loose curl behind her ear.

“Maybe I’ll take up sculpture…. Or move to a nudist colony? Find my inner chi…” 

Caroline helplessly let out a giggle, a sound that shattered through the cloud of depression looming over both their heads, a sound that only Stefan could draw out of her in her darkest hours. He repaid her with an a beaming smile.

“However long it takes,” he affirmed. “You are it. I’ve never met anyone more ‘forever material’ than you.” 

The corners of Caroline’s mouth extended into a small smile. 

“Well, that was impressive,” she whispered.


End file.
